I'm building another virtual SharePoint development environment. Unfortunately, I did not adequately size my VHD -- and with all the applications (Office, SharePoint Designer, VS2008) -- that takes up a lot of space.

Rebuilding a new VHD would be time consuming.

So, what is the least expensive and least time consuming way to enlarge a VHD?

You are going to need to use a couple of programs.

Download VHDResizer from vmToolkit. This is a simple to use tool, but it is only part of the solution. With this tool you can enlarge the available space, but next you have to extend the partition. You can use diskpart.exe (in your Windows/System32 folder).

Here is the trick, though. If you try this within Virtual PC, etc., still using the original VHD as your C drive, you will run into an error, "The volume you have selected may not be extended". If you have another Virtual computer, add the extended VHD as an additional drive, and use the diskpart program on it.

You can follow this guide to get you through.